Georgette Heyer is almost always a delight to read and I found this 1956 novel, Sprig Muslin, particularly enjoyable and entertaining. Set in the Regency period she recreated so convincingly, it has all the humour, adventure and romance I expect from her work and although the plot is similar in many ways to the later Charity Girl, the two books are different enough that there’s no risk of confusing them with each other.

It’s been seven years since Sir Gareth Ludlow lost his beloved fiancée in a tragic carriage accident but he is still sure that he will never feel for another woman what he once felt for Clarissa. At the age of thirty-five, he knows he can’t put off marrying any longer so, having given up hope of falling in love again, he makes the decision to propose to his old friend, Lady Hester Theale. Things don’t go quite according to plan, however…

Stopping at an inn on the way to Hester’s estate, Sir Gareth encounters Amanda, who is ‘very nearly seventeen’ and is running away from home as part of a plot to force her grandfather into allowing her to marry the young army officer she loves. Aware of all the dangers that could befall a young lady travelling alone, Sir Gareth insists on taking Amanda with him to Brancaster Park where Hester can take care of her until he is able to discover her full name and return her safely to her family. Furious at what she calls her ‘abduction’ and determined to continue with her plans, Amanda soon escapes from Sir Gareth’s clutches and our hero sets off in pursuit. The rest of the novel follows their escapades as Amanda does her best to stay one step ahead of Gareth, often with hilarious results!

I think the Heyer novels that take place on the road, like this one and The Corinthian, are particularly fun to read. There’s never a dull moment during Amanda and Gareth’s journey and they meet a selection of colourful characters along the way, including Hester’s lecherous uncle, Fabian Theale, the aspiring poet Hildebrande Ross and farmer’s boy Joe Ninfield. As for the main characters, I really liked Sir Gareth who, although he’s not one of my personal favourites, is everything you could want in a Heyer hero, and I also loved the contrast between the book’s two heroines. Amanda is a bit silly, admittedly, but she kept me amused with her imaginative stories and inventions and the way she stumbles from one scrape to another, while I warmed to Hester more and more as the novel progressed and an inner strength was revealed beneath her quiet, gentle exterior.

Now I’m looking forward to my next Heyer; I just need to decide which it will be!

When I posted my review of Friday’s Child a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I had a choice of three Heyer novels to read next and asked for some help in deciding which one to choose. The Corinthian received more recommendations than Faro’s Daughter and An Infamous Army so I knew it would have to be my next Heyer…and what a great choice it was! Published in 1940, it’s one of her earliest Regency novels and although I think she wrote better books, I did find this one thoroughly entertaining and fun to read.

Are you wondering what a Corinthian is? Well, it is defined in the dictionary as “a man about town, especially one who lives luxuriously or, sometimes, dissolutely”. The Corinthian of the title is Sir Richard Wyndham, a twenty-nine-year-old ‘Man of Fashion’ who, at the beginning of the novel, is under pressure from his mother and sister to marry the Honourable Melissa Brandon. Despite their insistence that she will make the ideal wife, Sir Richard knows that Melissa is only interested in his money – a thought which makes him so depressed he goes out and gets drunk (or ‘a trifle disguised’ as Heyer likes to call it).

On his way home, he looks up to see a young man attempting to descend from a window down a rope of knotted bed-sheets. Going to offer his assistance, Richard makes the discovery that the young man is actually a young woman: seventeen-year-old Penelope – or Pen – Creed. Like himself, Pen is being forced into a marriage not of her own choosing and has decided to escape by dressing as a boy and running away to the home of her childhood friend in Somerset. Because he is drunk and because it gives him an excuse to avoid Melissa, Richard finds himself volunteering to accompany her – but he is not prepared for the drama and adventure that awaits them on the journey!

I won’t say too much more about the plot, but you can expect a wonderful blend of comedy, action and mystery as Richard and Pen stumble from one farcical situation to another. Not only do they become entangled with jewel thieves, murderers and Bow Street Runners, they also have several encounters with various members of Pen’s family, as well as Melissa’s brother, the hilarious Cedric. As for Pen and Richard themselves, I found them both very likeable. Richard is sophisticated, bored and cynical, but also kind hearted, intelligent and competent, while Pen may be young and innocent but she’s not lacking in courage and is less silly than some of Heyer’s other very young heroines.

One of the great things about Heyer’s Regency novels is how fully they immerse us in the period. This one is no exception but it does have a different feel from the last Heyer Regency I read, Friday’s Child – that one was set mainly in London, in a whirlwind of masquerade balls, high-stakes card games, visits to the theatre and evenings at Almack’s Assembly Rooms, but this one takes us out of the city, with a lot of time spent on the road travelling towards Somerset. I loved the descriptions of what it was like to undertake a long journey by public stagecoach and the various coaching inns Pen and Richard stayed at along the way.

Having enjoyed this book so much, I am now about to start Faro’s Daughter and hoping it’s going to be another good one!

This Heyer novel was published in 1944 and as it’s a particularly lively and humorous one, I expect it provided her wartime readers with some welcome escapism. It’s still an entertaining read in the twenty-first century too and although it hasn’t become a favourite, I did enjoy it.

“Friday’s child is loving and giving” says the famous rhyme and that is how the heroine of the novel, seventeen-year-old Hero Wantage, is described by her friends. As an orphan treated as a poor relation in her cousin’s household, Hero’s marriage prospects are not good and she is facing a future as a governess when she receives a surprise proposal from her childhood friend, Lord Sheringham. Hero is under no illusions that Sheringham – or Sherry, as he is known – is actually in love with her; she knows that he needs to marry in order to receive his inheritance and that he has already been rejected by the beautiful Isabella Milborne. It will be a marriage of convenience only, but even this is so much more than Hero could ever have hoped for that she has no hesitation in accepting.

Hero may be young and naïve, but Sherry is only a few years older and no more mature. He has no intention of changing his lifestyle just because he now has a wife, so he continues his reckless spending, gambling and womanising without considering the bad example he is setting for Hero. I don’t think it’s spoiling too much to say that Sherry does gradually come to love and appreciate his wife, but not without a lot of misunderstandings and ‘getting into scrapes’ along the way! And when he does eventually admit to himself how he really feels about Hero, will he have left it so late that he risks losing her to another man?

Although the relationship between Hero and Sherry is at the heart of the novel, with both characters slowly developing and maturing as time goes by, there is also a secondary romance which involves Isabella Milborne (known as the Incomparable) and George, Lord Wrotham, a passionate, hot-headed young man who is always ready to fight a duel. George, along with Gil Ringwood and Ferdy Fakenham, forms Sherry’s little circle of friends – and they become Hero’s friends too, providing most of the humour in the book as they give her some dubious guidance in the social etiquette of Regency London and try to help her out of the disastrous situations she finds herself in.

Friday’s Child has just about everything you would expect from a Heyer novel: duels, card games, gambling, balls and parties, elopements and attempted elopements. It reminded me of two of her other books, The Convenient Marriage and April Lady, which also have storylines revolving around a newly married couple learning to love each other. Although I enjoyed this book much more than April Lady, The Convenient Marriage is my favourite of the three, mainly because I preferred the hero in that one, the Earl of Rule. I do tend to prefer her older, wiser heroes rather than the young, irresponsible ones like Sherry. I also thought this book felt slightly longer than it really needed to be and the constant misunderstandings became a bit repetitive towards the end.

There are other Heyer novels that I’ve liked better than this one, then, but her books are always a lot of fun to read and this is no exception. There are plenty of funny moments, usually involving Sherry’s three friends (I particularly loved the hilarious Ferdy). I have The Corinthian, An Infamous Army and Faro’s Daughter to choose from for my next Heyer. If you have read them, which one would you recommend I read first?